The 101 on avoiding the traps of using CraigsList in your apartment search
CraigsList used to be the #1 destination for New Yorkers looking for apartment rental deals. Nowadays, the venue has become a minefield of pitfalls to avoid, sending wannabe tenants to StreetEasy. Here’s a bit of a breakdown of how this wondrous list of lists works in the world of NYC real estate.
- Traffic galore: So many eyeballs land on CL, that it’s almost impossible to avoid the site from a broker’s standpoint. The sheer amount of traffic that this community gets from apartment hunters is astonishing, with everyone looking to get a deal and find that hidden gem or diamond in the rough. It’s no wonder that hundreds of ads are posted on the site daily, with frequent double and triple posts of the very same apartment.
- Ring ring: Brokers clearly try to capitalize on this volume, with their primary goal of making the phone ring. (Note: apartment ads on CL costs the broker $5 – $10, so these are dollars clearly going towards getting business.) Unfortunately, many are trained to do only that: get the phone to ring no matter what. This means often creating “Frankenstein apartments” for the desperate tenant to drool over: a picture of a bathroom from an UWS 2-bed, the kitchen of a Financial District studio and the roof-deck of a Gramercy condo, slap an attractive price on it and … voila! The perfect apartment now exists.
- Inflated Expectations: Clearly, brokers know that no one will call on a $5k 1-bed … the lower the price, the more calls they get. Everyone is incentivized to advertise only their cheapest deals or else make them up. The result is an inflated sense of the number of “bargains” out there, and therefore a very skewed sense of what is realistic to expect. So what happens when you call? “I’m sorry, this apartment is rented but I have another 1-bed you will just love.”
- For rent by whom?: For those of you looking to go the “for rent by owner” route thinking you can avoid all shadiness, ask the voice on the other end if s/he is a broker. If the answer is anything but “No”, there’s a significant likelihood that the answer is yes, as 50%+ of owner listings have an agent behind them.
So how do you determine whether an ad is real and an agent worthy? Here is a question-driven litmus test to guide your way:
Question: Where is the apartment located?
- Bad Answer: It’s in West Chelsea
- Worse answer: The landlord prohibits me from giving the exact address.
- OK Answer: It’s located at on 5th Avenue, between Y and X.
- Ideal Answer: It’s at 625 Fifth Ave, Apt. 2C (agents often find it hard to share if it’s not their exclusive listing, though)
Question: Tell me more about the apartment: where is it facing? what is the bathroom like?
- Bad Answer: What are you looking for?
- Good Answer: It’s facing north; the bathroom was renovated 3 years ago and has a stand-up shower (not tub), etc.
Question: What size bed can I fit in the bedroom?
- Bad Answer: You have to just see the apartment; come to my office to register.
- Good Answer: If you have a queen, that would work well. Frankly, a king just wouldn’t fit unless you eliminated all walking space.
Question: When is it available?
- Bad Answer: I’m not sure, let me check with the landlord and I’ll get back to you.
- Worse Answer: When are you looking to move?
- Good Answer: The tenant’s lease expires in the middle of June and the apartment is available for occupancy on July 1.
If you do choose to conduct your own apartment search, do so with your eyes open and your expectations adjusted. If it sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is. Otherwise, go the broker route if you want to avoid these hassles altogether.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
“Good Answer: It’s located at xxx 5th Avenue, between Y and X, apartment 2C.”
A rental broker can’t tell you the address!!! If they did that prospective tenants would just go to the building directly and screw the broker out of a fee. Your advice is the worst advice. It’s so bad that you should take it down. It makes you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your other points are very valid and will help people, but anyone expecting a broker to give you an address over the phone is misguided.
hello “duh” … fair enough, changed it just a tad … though a rental broker can and often does share the address, even with an open listing; further, many rental brokers actually have exclusives where they can, indeed, share the address. lastly, many many sites are popping up divulging full addresses AND landlord contact information precisely to bypass brokers… we figure you can either evolve or become extinct, which is why we’re promoting transparency. Long gone are the days when safeguarding information is the way to grow your business. Just our two cents.
As a broker – My answer to “Duh” is that anyone who is afraid of getting screwed usually does a little screwing themselves. Choose your words and emotions carefully.
Sure, protect your information by all means!!! but acting indignant because the “best case scenario” is that a broker has an exclusive proves that you simply don’t have any yourself.
That said, I don’t completely agree with Messrs Honeycrisp for trying to elude that brokers are the ones who are tricksters. Every agent in this city, albeit small or big, has been screwed by clients who feel entitled and assume that we as brokers do nothing.
Simply put, there is a lot of bullshit that we as brokers have to put up with
clients who:
work with multiple agents; negotiate a better deal with their current landlord by asking a broker to show them cheaper apartments and then renegotiate their lease; go around brokers straight to the owner after we did all the research for them; refuse to pay for services rendered; demand a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the asking rent; blow off appointments or simply don’t return calls if they found another apartment or stopped looking; bounce or stop checks, etc, etc, etc.
the list goes on.
Those of us who remain in the industry develop thick skin. Those who quit are embarrassed to admit they ever tried it.
It’s not an easy job – especially when every blogger in the city seems to be against you. No one points out when you did a GREAT job at finding the perfect home for a newcomer to the city, a family, a referral (because you did such outstanding work for their friend/colleague). There is no love for the broker who fought tooth and nail to get you that apartment even though the competing application was better. Where are the accolades for that agent who found EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR???
What about that agent who helped you beat out everyone else at that open house so that YOU were the one who signed the contract for your first NYC condo and held your hand through the process?
For those of us brokers who work hard and do an honest day’s work…I salute you.
Oh, no worries, “a little love” … we couldn’t agree with you more; that post is in the works and will be up later this week, basically asking: which came first, the shady client or shady broker … there are so many stellar agents in the city and because of some bad apples (no pun intended) they end up having to toughen up because of all the ways tenants treat (rather mis-treat) them … it’s a loop really, client gets burned, burns agent, who burns client, etc. (it can start with the agent or client)
Looking forward to your comments on that future post.
Agreed. I don’t know which came first. It’s always and uphill battle and sometimes I feel like Sisyphus pushing that rock up that hill only to have it roll over my toe.
Great article though, and great tips!
Looking forward to the next article….
“This means often creating “Frankenstein apartments” for the desperate tenant to drool over: a picture of a bathroom from an UWS 2-bed, the kitchen of a Financial District studio and the roof-deck of a Gramercy condo, slap an attractive price on it and … voila! The perfect apartment now exists. ”
I never understood this? Wouldn’t I go see any potential apartment in person… Realize that you’re clearly wasting my time, become annoyed at your incompetence, and then at the end of this dog and pony show (which with my patience, would be very short) not sign anything? (and also never recommend you!) Doesn’t a broker realize that besides wasting my time, he’s wasting his own? No deals will be made at the end of that meeting. You’re not gonna “upsell” me into something else. If I take the time to search for something online, THAT is what I want to see… I would guess the unsuccessful brokers are the ones who don’t give their clients enough credit.
Yes, we find it an odd practice as well, Mark. I believe the intention is to have the phone ring, first and foremost. Thereafter, brokers can apologize and say “I’m sorry, that apartment has been rented but I have three others I think you’d like – when can you come see them?”
The best way to find a broker, or rather, be a successful broker, is to do right by your clients and ask them to refer you. The best way to find a real estate agent or broker is, and always will be, word of mouth referrals…I suggest checking out http://www.rateyourbroker.com you see good and bad referrals…
Well then, they need a new business-plan Honeycrisp. As soon as a broker says, “I’m sorry, that apartment has been rented but I have 3 other….” (Dial tone)
Indeed, and 8 out of 10 times, particularly during the winter, that weeds out the scams. In agents’ defense, in the summer it gets tougher, because so many transactions are going on that agents are busy showing and closing versus updating their listings OR applications are in without leases signed, in which case a good agent will share that with you, even though it sounds sketchy.
times are tough and these land owners are still crazy with power.
right now rates are steady because of the bad economey ,
lets look at the story one or two years from now .
when are the renters going to organize them selfs and beat down the high prices ??
probably the 12 of never ..
i have a vision ..